Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

NOTEBOOK “γ”

PATOUILLET,AMERICAN IMPERIALISM

JosephPatouillet, American Imperialism, Dijon, 1904.(Thesis.) (388 pp.)

Quotes (at the start) widely known passages from Hobson (Imperialism).

Speaks of the fact ofBritish imperialism(p. 33 et seq.) andGerman(p. 36 et seq.) (sections I and II of Chapter II).

A few words about Japanese and Russian imperialism (p. 39 in fine).

Driault(Political Problems, pp. 221-22): “The shattering defeat of Spain was a revelation.... It had seemed to be established that international equilibrium was a matter to be settled by five or six of the chief European powers; now an unknown quantity was introduced into the problem” (p. 49).

“Thus, the conquest of markets, the drive for tropical produce—such is the prime cause of the policy of colonial expansion which has come to be known as imperialism. And the colonies serve also as excellent strategic points, the value of which we shall indicate: ... to ensure Asian markets ...  they had to have these support points”... (p. 64).

Exports from the U.S.A. (percentages)

Hawaii is half-way between Panama and Hong Kong.

The Philippines are a step towards Asia andChina(p. 118). Idem 119-120-122.

The war with Spain over Cuba was justified by pleading the interests offreedom, the liberation of Cuba, etc. (p. 158 et seq.).

Canada. Economic subordination prepares the way for political “integration” (p. 198).

“When the white man governs himself, that is self-government; but when he governs himself and also governs others, it is no longer self-government; it is despotism” (272).

—Phelps, United States Intervention in Cuba(New York, 1898) and others have declared the Cuban war “criminal”, etc.

Chapter III, p. 293, is headed: “Present United States Policy: the Combination of Imperialism and the Monroe Doctrine”[4]: both combined, and interpreted!!!

The South Americans reject (p. 311 et seq.) the interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine to mean that America belongs to theNorthAmericans. They fear the United States and want independence. The United Stateshas“designs” on South America and combatsGermany’s growing influence there....

(Cf. especially Novikov in the source references.[1])

In annexing the Philippines, the United States cheated Filipino leaderAguinaldoby promising the country independence (p. 373): “The annexation was described as ‘Jingo treachery’”.[2]

[1]See p. 213 of this volume—Ed.

[2]See present edition, Vol. 22, p. 287.—Ed.

[3]The “United States of Europe” slogan, in its different variations, gained particularly wide currency during the First World War. It was vigorously boosted by bourgeois politicians and the Kautskyites, Trotskyists and other opportunists. In the political manifesto of the R.S.D.L.P. Central Committee, “The War and Russian Social-Democracy”, published inSotsial-Demokraton November 4, 1914, Lenin stressed that “without the revolutionary overthrow of the German, the Austrian and the Russian monarchies” it was a false and meaningless slogan (see present edition, Vol. 21, p. 33). In his well-known article “On the Slogan for a United States of Europe”, published August 23, 4915, Lenin wrote that “a United States of Europe, under capitalism, is either impossible or reactionary” (ibid., p. 340), and this was fully substantiated by his economic analysis of imperialism. p. 211

[4]Monroe Doctrine—a declaration of United States’ foreign policy principles formulated by President James Monroe in a message to Congress on December 2, 1823. Based on the “America for Americans” slogan, the doctrine has been used by the U.S. as a cover for its colonialist plans in Latin America, for constant interference in the affairs of Latin American countries, the imposition of shackling treaties, the establishment and support of anti-popular regimes subservient to the U.S. monopolists, and aid for these regimes in their struggle against the national liberation movement. p. 211